


butterfly effect

by hananapeel



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, mostly gen with a tiny bit of romo at the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-07
Updated: 2017-01-07
Packaged: 2018-09-15 11:23:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9232847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hananapeel/pseuds/hananapeel
Summary: butterfly effect (noun): the phenomenon whereby a minute localized change in a complex system can have large effects elsewhere. see also: chaos theorythe flap of a butterfly's wings in brazil can cause a tornado in texas. what changes can it cause in yuri plisetsky?





	

The day before Yuri’s first Juniors, his grandfather made him stay at the table after dinner. “Yurochka,” he said, “do you know of the butterfly effect?”

Yuri did not, nor was he particularly interested. He was ten and his belly was pleasantly full from piroshkis, and beneath his skin hummed nervousness and prickly excitement for his first big competition. Tomorrow, he would skate. Even the prospect of his grandfather’s stories could not distract him from his imagination: a pristine rink, its stands filled with people, the triumph of a clean landing, the rasp of his skates against ice.

“Let me tell you,” his grandfather said, and Yuri was disobedient to many but never to his grandfather, so he stayed. His grandfather took Yuri’s hands into his own. They were large and rough, and warm.

“The butterfly effect is when a small thing leads to another thing, slightly bigger, and another. The flap of a butterfly’s wings could cause a tornado, eventually.” His grandfather stopped. His expression asked if Yuri understood. They often sat together just like this, and his grandfather would tell Yuri a story, and his expression would ask if he understood. Usually they were Yuri’s favorites, but tomorrow, he would skate in front of all of Russia. His fingers tingled in anticipation of the cold rink air. He did not particularly care about butterflies, today.

“Yurochka,” his grandfather said, more sharply this time, pulling Yuri away again from his imaginations. His hands squeezed Yuri’s more tightly. “In my life, the most important flap of a butterfly’s wings was buying you your first skates.” His grandfather’s voice was large and warm, like his hands. “Do you understand?”

Yuri nodded, even though he didn’t. He was ten and didn’t understand such things.

“If you want to be, Yurochka, you can be the best skater in Russia. In the world, even,” his grandfather said.

Oh. Yuri felt a smile form on his lips. That was a thing he could understand.

 

...

 

When Yuri was younger, he thought that his butterfly wing flap was his first skating lesson. Childishly he had told his grandfather that skating was destined to be his only love. Nothing had called to him before like the feeling of wind rushing as his skates glided across the ice: he insisted to his grandfather that it was art, and passion, and life, and love, and all the vague abstract terms his eleven-year-old self could think of.

Then he first watched Victor skate. He was sometimes liquid and sometimes solid, shifting swiftly and playfully, a constant whirl. Ah, Yuri remembers himself thinking at the time, so _this_ is skating. Skating didn’t mean the wind rushing through your hair or the scraping sound of your skates against the ice. Skating meant the performance, the spectacle. Looking out at the blur of the crowd and knowing that they are captivated by you. At twelve, he thought that this was his flap of butterfly wings.

Now he was fifteen, and didn’t think he’d ever had a butterfly wing flap at all. He liked the wind, and he liked the spectacle, but what he loved the most was winning: standing at the top of the podium with every single bone in his body aching as they’ve done for the last six months of heavy training. At the top of the podium Yuri could relish in their ache, be euphoric in it even, as if the soreness of his body was a big “fuck you,” to everyone else.

He craved the podium. He chased it like his life was on the line.

Which made him think, though: maybe he didn’t have to be a skater. Maybe the wind in his hair and the delight of the performance were not real butterfly wing flaps. Maybe he would have been just as happy running track, or writing novels, or doing someone’s fucking taxes, even. Just as long as he was the best.

 

...

 

“Yuri... I don’t think it’s very nice to call Yuuri that name.”

Yuri stopped mid-sentence, shocked and embarrassed into silence that now crawled cold across his skin. In front of him sat Otabek, his face as serious and unreadable as ever. The red Barcelona sunset behind him, just seconds ago as warm as the tingle of recent victory still lingering in him, now cast the planes of Otabek’s stern face into harsh shadow. Great, only a few days into this friendship and he already fucked it up.

He had been telling Otabek some story about Victor and Katsudon– no, Yuuri– from when he was in Hasetsu. It didn’t even matter what story now, because Otabek was looking at him in what was probably disappointment and regret at asking such an asshole to be friends.

“I-” Yuri stopped, almost choked on his own mortified saliva. His face felt as hot as the fucking sun. “I’m sorry,” he said, all in a rush. “Should I– I should– go.”

“No, I– “ Otabek reached out his hand, sounding as mortified as Yuri felt. Yuri sat back down. “I’m sorry,” Otabek said. He put down his hand, only to twist it around his other in constant, worried motion. “Please don’t go. That came out differently than I meant. You don’t have to apologize to me for anything.”

It was an offering, an opportunity to say, “oh, okay, thanks,” and stop this awkward as hell conversation to move on to something not as embarrassing for the both of them. Yuri should have taken it. On a better day, with another person, he might have. But right now his blood was still running cold and guilty so instead what came out was, “But... I’m an asshole.” He cast his gaze to anything other than Otabek: the cafe sign, the building across the street, the crow on the railing eyeing his pastry. His next words rose up in his throat, thick and caustic as bile. Uncontrollable, they stumbled clumsily out of his unwilling mouth: “A-Are you sure... Are you sure you want to be friends? With me?”

The crow hopped a few inches closer to their table. Yuri glared at it. His heart pounded unsteadily as the sun shone uncaringly, red and cold. When Otabek’s reply came, it was carefully placed words like balanced dominos. “If you do not want to be friends, that is okay.”

“No, that’s not what–” Yuri took a breath, dared a quick glance at Otabek before glaring at the table instead. “Okay listen, no offense, but you sort of seem the type that’s like, nice to everyone, and not just out of politeness, but like genuinely? And I’m not that type, if you don’t want to be friends, I’d understand.”

Yuri was too busy studying the wood grain on their table, so he was startled into looking up when he heard Otabek huff softly in laughter. “So I’m saying that I’d understand if you don’t want to be friends, and you’re saying that you’d understand if I don’t want to be friends. What a very understanding conversation we are having.” His smile was mostly hidden by his hand, but it manifested itself clearly otherwhere, in the gentle crinkling of his eyes, the soft roundness of his cheeks. The overall effect had Yuri relax in relief even though he hadn’t realized he was tense in the first place: _he doesn’t hate me_.

“Yeah,” he said, laughing in agreement. _He doesn’t hate me._ “Though I’ll– I want to work on the asshole bit. Can’t be tarnishing your reputation.”

“Yuuri probably doesn’t deserve it,” Otabek agreed, and smiled another secret smile in eye crinkles and rounded cheeks.

“You’re right,” Yuri said, ripping off a piece of his pastry and tossing it towards the damn crow. “Okay but– you’d agree with me on this, right– sometime Victor is a pain in the ass and has it coming.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Otabek said, his face serious as ever, but Yuri was already starting to learn how to catch his secret smiles.

The back of Yuri’s neck tingled from a light breeze, small as the wind from the wings of a butterfly, or maybe an overly persistent crow.

...

When they first kissed, it was during a storm. As the windows shuddered from the force of the storm's gales, Yuri thought it was fitting.

**Author's Note:**

> the scene at the cafe was the most self-indulgent scene ive ever written. i think that the first days of their friendship would be full of awkwardness and misunderstanding.. also. I JUST WANT MORE YURI PLISETSKY CHARACTER GROWTH!! i want otabek to help him grow to be a better person!!!!!! i want yuri p to stop calling yuuri k piggy/katsudon/other variants !
> 
> thank you for reading!! please talk to me!


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